Bona Fide Deluxe
Pivoting to takeout during the depths of the pandemic, the hip EAV restaurant Banshee became known for a couple of things: One was chef Nolan Wynn’s pepperoni butter, otherwise part of a plated appetizer but available, in extremis, to purchase by the pint and take home. The other was a few hefty sandwiches optimized for that same purpose. Both foreshadowed the Banshee team’s latest venture, a superb counter-service sandwich shop and cocktail bar steps from the Edgewood–Candler Park MARTA station. Bona Fide Deluxe’s menu comprises eight deli-style sandwiches, in some sense recognizable specimens (there’s a chicken sandwich, a roast beef melt, and so on), but the beneficiaries of just enough special attention to keep things interesting. That roast beef melt, for instance, gets a bulgogi-ish treatment with Korean barbecue sauce, American cheese, napa cabbage, and miso mayo, and the phenomenally good chopped-chicken, pictured above, is a kind of Middle Eastern mash-up: zhoug mayo, feta, olives, and big chunks of crunchy potatoes. (The aforementioned pepperoni butter finds new life as pepperoni mayo on a cold-cut sandwich.) A couple salads are equally fine—especially a lively pickled-beet number with pink peppercorn ranch, ricotta salata, and dill—and fans of Banshee’s cocktail program will feel at home here with a brief, amaro-forward list of offerings; I was fond of the rye-based Captain’s Log, accented with the nutty, herby, slightly candylike Italian liqueur Faretti Biscotti. The space, meanwhile, is gorgeous—bright and airy, with plenty of outdoor seating. Edgewood
Humble Pie
Notwithstanding some regional variations—you’ve got your Neapolitan, your Detroit style, your Brazilian style—you don’t see an enormous amount of innovation in the pizza space. Who dares mess with perfection? The secret behind this flashy new pizzeria in the Interlock complex is its combination of solid fundamentals (long-fermented dough, made from DaySprings Farms flour and baked in a wood-fired oven), pies that wander just a little bit outside the box, and a killer culinary team led by Ron Hsu and Aaron Phillips, the pair behind the Candler Park prix fixe restaurant Lazy Betty. Working with chef Evelyn Ling, they provide standard offerings like pepperoni and margherita pizzas as well as bespoke options like Loaded Baked Potato, with cheddar, chives, and bacon, and a clam pizza with fior di latte and charred lemon. The latter comes with a little ramekin of clam butter for dipping, and if that feels like gilding the lily, that’s sort of the point—the chefs’ background in haute cuisine is also reflected in add-ons like caviar (starting at $35 for half an ounce) and black truffle ($25). Lest you get the wrong idea, though, the pies themselves are in the $20 range, and other shareable dishes walk the line between fancy and simply fun: for instance, truffle fries, crab hush puppies, and a buttery, garlicky side of roasted broccolini. The worst mistake you could make is passing up the dessert menu, which includes several options for—what else? Pie! Mudslide pie, intensely chocolatey, was creamy as could be and artfully plated; there’s also banana cream pie, pear galette with butter pecan ice cream, and more, courtesy of Lazy Betty pastry chef Carelys Vazquez. Westside
Whoopsie’s
Early reporting made Whoopsie’s sound like a cocktail bar with a few things to snack on, but that somewhat undersells this little jewel box of a restaurant—a dark, noisy, eclectically decorated space where the food menu is as precise and as thoughtful as the drink list. It’s also as concise as the drink list, with just a few judiciously selected items available on a given night: a couple salads, a few potato dishes, a protein of the day, a sandwich du jour or two. On a recent visit, a shrimp cocktail tostada was crunchy, creamy, and superfresh (though I did find myself coveting the eye-catching prime rib sandwich, luxuriating in a pool of jus, being enjoyed by my neighbors down the bar); a radish salad, with kale, fennel, and chevre, was a similarly graceful showcase of contrasting textures and flavors (though one might also covet the hasselback sweet potato, with hummus, labneh, pickled ramps, and zatar). The food is overseen by Hudson Rouse, owner of the Avondale Estates restaurant Rising Son, and the drinks are from Tim Faulkner, who met Rouse when both worked at Octopus Bar. Faulkner has described his offerings here as less “classic” than “classy”—he’s mixing, for instance, an Amaretto sour and a corn and oil, a potently boozy Barbadian concoction of rum, falernum, and Angostura bitters. Reynoldstown
This article appears in our May 2023 issue.
